Health Care

Universal Coverage Is Aimed At Keeping Costs Down

July 22, 1994

The latest brouhaha regarding health care reform concerns whether President Clinton is backing off his insistence that Congress pass a plan that guarantees health care insurance for all Americans. Clinton left the impression that he was willing to compromise when he spoke to the nation's governors earlier this week, but since then members of the administration have been saying that's not true, the president still wants universal coverage.

The point is one of the most controversial in the health care debate, and it's important for the public to understand that when politicians talk about plans that aren't universal, they aren't saying that some people won't get health care. What they won't get is health care insurance.

If reform leaves millions of people without insurance, they'll do the same thing uninsured people do now. They'll put off getting treatment until a problem is so severe they have to go to an emergency room. Emergency rooms are the most expensive way to deliver health care. And hospitals that treat indigent people or the working poor who have no insurance pass those costs on to paying customers, in part through higher premiums that businesses must pay to insure their workers.

The insistence on universal coverage makes good economic sense. People who have insurance will get better and, ultimately, less expensive medical care. The political problem involves how to finance such a program. If that can be solved, in the long run everyone will save.